There are too many TV recap sites that are way better at what they do, so I'm not going to.
These are merely my thoughts and comments about what I've seen and heard - too long for tweets or FB statuses, but probably too short for decent length blog posts.

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

A while ago, we all only know that Bourdain and Nigella were involved in some cooking competition show for ABC. It finally made its appearance, and it's called The Taste. Top Chef alum Brian Malarkey and Top Chef Masters veteran Ludo Lefebvre were announced later to round out the judging/mentor panel.

Reading about the format, it reminded me of The Voice, but with food. I admit I don't watch The Voice, but I heard about how the auditions go.

Watching the audition stage, I found that it's interesting quite a number of professional chefs are getting passed over the home cooks for each mentor's kitchens. Not to mention the vegan/vegetarian cooks that try to slip the judges non-meat product unto the spoon, haha :D

Am I the only one that thinks it a little weird that everyone else except (Brian) Malarkey go by first names? It's probably just me.

After watching the auditions, I don't quite understand how the judges "messed up" and didn't pick someone for their kitchen whose food they liked. What the...?! Maybe they had to vote so quickly, that's why they "screwed up" like that? I don't know... Interesting that Bourdain picked the pretty ladies for his kitchen/team, but that's just a random observation. At least they have their 4 person teams and the competition begins!

Sucker that I am for food and cooking shows, I'll keep watching to see how the competition part plays out.

PS. Trust Bourdain to come up with these gems: "vomit in terror", "chute of terror".

Monday, January 21, 2013

This is after attempting to catch first airings (not sure who would bother uploading these on YouTube okay, you can find full episodes on the official YouTube channel...) of the nine episodes aired (as of this week)... I definitely missed a few, especially the makeover part, which I enjoy a little too much because it's fun to see some people's bad reactions to getting their hair cut short.

There's a good mix of contestants - not too many people from the same places from the same countries, etc. Considering how many countries in this part of the world does not have its own Top Model show, that is.

Can't help but snigger at some of these contestants' names, but I give Bei Si props for not picking her own English name (if her parents already hadn't) to go by in the competition.

The blatant sponsor placement was a bit atrocious, but an evil necessity.

Despite it being shot in Singapore, the Malaysian in me was gleeful that the Singaporean got booted first.

There's a whole lot of fainting and panic attacks going on :P

After watching America's Next Top Model judging go cray cray in recent cycles, it took some getting used to watching this panel really take things seriously.

I think the producers' idea of "must also understand and speak English" is a lot looser than my own interpretation.

To all the people who complained about how the half-white people are still in the competition - about half the eliminated contestants don't exactly fulfill the previous point.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Producer 1: Viewers LOVE watching the contestants suffer - so instead of team challenges every few episodes, why not have them EVERY SINGLE EPISODE! The numbers would be through the roof!

Producer 2: Genius! That's settled... let's go for lunch!

[Disclaimer: That was just really fictionalized BS as to how they might have conjured up with the team challenge-only season of Project Runway. Please don't sue me - it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.]

This move will definitely bring out the human drama, but will the numbers be any better? Also, would the designers be in The Fashion Show-esque "fashion houses" all season long, or would they be drawing buttons out of the velvet bag every elimination challenge?

Which begs the question - why don't they draw scissors out of a box like how they draw knives on Top Chef? LOL. I guess oversized buttons out of the velvet bag is cheaper and safer all around :P